discipline

Oh, you are. Just remember it comes gradually.

One of the BEST things I learned when they have a tantrum, is to put them down on the ground. On their back. You might also stand over them and look at them with a blank expression. Trust me, it looks menacing for a kid. Then walk away. They quickly get the picture. This way you don't give them attention and the tantrums quickly subside. Well, quickly is of course a relative word. It's also great because they can't hurt themselves nor anyone else. Yes, I know it's about a tantrum. But with disciplining comes tantrums.

I basically agree with what PP said; the tricky thing is to switch from that to explaining. We started that at about 3 or 4, I think.

It's frightening when your discipline works sometimes. We're now living in a mid-sized apartment rather than a house, and so everyone needs to keep their voices down when inside now. This isn't coming easily, but I'm barking "keep quiet" all the time. But today the nine-year old plasters "do not yell" signs around the house. So she's getting it. But success in discipline feels strange, because so often you don't know if it's working until, say, the next big public tantrum about how she can't take a break from walking while in the middle of the road or whatever.

This is the hardest thing of everything. Trying to discipline two two-year-olds has been the toughest experience of my life. I think the one other thing I would add is that as soon as they are old enough to become attached to things (toys, books, TV shows), you can threaten to take them away, which is much more effective for some kids than yelling.

Tracer - I know it sounds hard and it is, to begin with. You hear yourself saying the sort of things that infuriated you as a child - "because I say so!", "if you can't share it we'll put it away for good!", etc - and your heart sinks a little. I always thought I'd be able to avoid that empty rhetoric, patiently explain and justify any act of apparently arbitrary discipline to my kids but, as Schwantz and Meg say, (i) early on, explanations are meaningless to them and (ii) most of time, you're just trying to get their shoes on in less than 15min for chrissakes.

I also fear that I'm inconsistent: too lax (not following through with threats of toy/treat/trip withdrawal, but what are you going to do when you've got them all the way to the park gates, turn around and drag them home? Some threats are just empty and they know it), too severe (sudden withdrawal of privileges without forewarning because I've just had ENOUGH). Pam is much, much better at this than me. In fact, I probably undermine whatever system she has in the evenings and weekends. Not that they're well-behaved for her either. Oh lord no.

Picking your battles - oh so true. Jumping on the bed? A felony at 2, a minor misdemeanour at 3, a caution at 4. Drawing on walls/furniture? Always bad, always will be.

The first you make them cry with the content of something you've said, rather than the way you've said it, is a scary moment. A feeling of absolute power and terrible responsibility.

It's all good though, innit?

I fear how Elisabeth will be. Even now she enjoys when I say no. She literally runs to the DVD player, starts pushing the buttons and looks at me. She also wags (?) her finger. If she's silent, I have to check cause usually she's doing something wrong. Like today: she was spraying the apple juice over the floor. She came to me, wagging her finger. I looked and agreed.

i have a suspicion that the answer to this will be like the answer to all other parenting questions: just be more patient than they are, outlast them, and you will triumph

time out is an invaluable tool, imo. from when our oldest was relatively young -- 2, i guess -- we instituted it, and he understood it pretty quickly. if we said 'go sit down,' he had a designated corner he went and sat in. these days i just tell him to go to bed. usually a few minutes in his bedroom is all he needs to calm down. sometimes he'll stay there for 20 minutes, which is fine with me too. the hard ones are the tantrums in public. sometimes there's no real option except to scoop them up and get out of wherever you are. the 4-yr-old had a total meltdown on the playground the other day, so we just packed up and left and went for a walk. we found a fountain and he ended up sitting next to it for about a half-hour, just watching the water.

a lot of this i take from what i remember about being a temperamental kid. i used to have huge, crying tantrums. what i eventually found worked best was just getting out of whatever setting i was in, whether that meant going to a different room or going outside or whatever. time out follows that same principle, separating the child from the immediate situation that is creating the problem. definitely just yelling doesn't accomplish much of anything, although i won't pretend that that doesn't happen. i never feel good about it, but sometimes it's just there and i do it and vent what i need to vent and then go back to being as calm as possible.

the key thing i think is to think about it less as "discipline" -- which sounds so fascist -- than as civilizing. it's about teaching them how to deal with all the frustrations of life, all the times you don't get what you want or have to wait for it or the thing you thought you want turns out to be disappointing or you want the thing someone else has or etc etc etc. stuff that most grown-ups struggle with too. but everyone needs to know what the boundaries are, what kinds of expression of frustration or desire or disappointment or anger are acceptable and what kinds aren't.

Elisabeth approached two kids in creche and pulled out some of their hair. She does this with Ophelia. Or rather attempts to but I try to stop her. It's very hard though. I usually am very strict but she continues to attempt the hairpulling. In the creche they put her in the bathroom. Timeout indeed. :-)